Wisdom Spring (2 page)

I did make two selfish decisions; in retrospect, important ones. I had a safe deposit box with almost a hundred thousand dollars in cash that no one knew about. It was money I was putting away in case the economy really tanked and cash became vital to our existence. I’m not totally sure why I didn’t tell my wife about it. Maybe I didn’t want to worry her. Or maybe I sensed that our marriage was on shaky ground and that somewhere down the line I might really need it. I couldn’t have imagined this. Needless to say, I didn’t reveal the existence of the box after Karen’s death, figuring it might be the only thing I’d have left to draw on if I decided to live. Normally, the vultures would have searched my assets beyond my established accounts and discovered the box, but given the circumstances and the fact that I seemed willing to relinquish everything but the clothes on my back, I don’t think they even looked.

The second decision was taking my gun. It was a Sig Sauer .40, my pride and joy. Originally bought for home protection, I had come to value my Thursday nights at the gun range as—oddly enough—my “quiet time.” I could get lost in my shooting and totally escape the pressures of my work. I took it with me in my retreat, thinking I might need it down the line—not for self-defense, of course, but for a quick and easy end to my miserable life.

So I left. There were no tears on my part. I had cried myself dry during the week following Karen’s death. There was nothing left, for now. I knew it would hit me again and again in the days … the years … to follow. But for now, there was nothing.

*****

Boston was in my rear view mirror as I headed south. I was in Connecticut before I allowed myself the thought that I had absolutely no idea where I was going. I had my credit card, all of the cash from the box, a couple of suitcases, and no place to go. I figured I’d never return to Boston, so if I landed someplace I liked I’d deposit the money there. If I decided to end it all, I’d send it to my brother. So I just drove. I stayed the night in a Hyatt somewhere outside of Baltimore—old habits died hard. No cheap dives for me—but it was wasted money; I barely knew where I was. Again, visions of suicide began to creep in, but the thought of a poor, unsuspecting chambermaid coming across my body in the morning prevented me from following through.

It wasn’t until I saw the sign for I-20, near Florence, South Carolina, that I made yet another life-altering decision. I needed a friendly face and some peace and quiet. I needed to think without the noise of reporters, lawyers, ex-wives, and ex-friends. I needed to come to terms with all that had been thrust upon me. I needed to go to Alaska. My brother would give me the space I craved, and, when the time was right, the slap in the face that would allow me to jump-start my life.

I had been to Alaska enough times to know how beautiful the summer can be, but it was still only May, and I wanted to let the Alaskan spring thaw complete its cycle, so I decided to take my time getting there. I had always loved to drive, so going the long route wouldn’t be a problem. After all, for the first time in my adult life, my calendar was clear. In fact, I no longer had a calendar. Time meant nothing to me.

I spent that night in some medium-priced chain hotel off the highway in Georgia. It was only the second night of my banishment from my old life, and already my tastes were cheapening. Would my third night be spent in a seedy cottage motel, set back behind a hubcap stand owned by a cross-eyed family? If so, it would definitely be time to call it quits.

I ate a late dinner in a nearby Denny’s. That was a first for me, as my preference had always tended to run toward the Capital Grille and such. But as I looked around me and saw all the happy faces of the kids out for a night on the town, I kind of wished that I had taken Karen to a Denny’s. We had wonderful times together, but I had to face the truth. I was a snob. I spoiled her rotten, but she never got to experience some of the things that “normal” American kids did. Sadly, she might have ended up being as much of a snob as her father. But I still wish she had had that chance.

I spent an hour there, watching the families, barely touching my food. My insides were so knotted up I was having trouble breathing. The waitress asked me if there was something wrong with the food. I told her I just wasn’t hungry. I had her wrap it up, with the intention of eating it in my room when my stomach settled down. However, as I walked out the door, I stuffed it in a trash can.

I couldn’t go on like this. Every waking moment was monopolized with thoughts of Karen. Was I wrong? Would she have lived using the conventional methods? No. There was no doubt in my mind at the time, so it did no good to second-guess it now. I could see it in the doctors’ eyes. No matter how often they told us to have faith, they knew what the ultimate result would be.

I got in my car and hunted out a liquor store and bought a bottle of Scotch. Yet another first. Growing up, I had to endure both my parents getting drunk on a nightly basis. They weren’t mean drunks, just unhappy drunks. They never hit or yelled at my brother and me, they just quietly drank themselves into oblivion, dying within a year of each other when I was in college.

A lot of people take on the habits of their parents, and my brother did for a few years, before finally sobering up and making something of his life. I went the opposite route. The thought of putting alcohol in my body made me angry, so alcohol was just something I didn’t drink, until that night in Georgia.

Maybe I just wanted to see if it would help me forget. But really, is the death of your only child—your princess—something you can forget? I sat in my room, drinking from the bottle. Frankly, it was disgusting, but I kept going. However, I wasn’t forgetting. I was remembering to the point of agony. A third of the way into the bottle I ran for the bathroom and vomited. I stayed with my head in the toilet all night, throwing up again and again.

I kept that room for another night. I was feeling so awful, I could barely move. I put the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door and stayed in bed all day. I ventured out again that evening and found a small pub-style restaurant. I was hungry, and tried to replace some of what I had lost from my system. But I was only half aware of where I was and what I was doing. I watched the captioned news on the TV above my table. It was all the same. It never changed. The Middle East was erupting once again; there was a manhunt for the murderer of four political staffers of a U.S. senator; our relations with Mexico had taken a turn for the worse; and I didn’t care.

I was in my car the next morning driving west. I caught my reflection in the rearview mirror, or at least from the nose up. That was more than enough. I never considered myself handsome by any means, but now I was almost zombie-like. The stress of the last year had left my once almond-colored hair with streaks of gray. Courtesy of my adventure with the bottle, my eyes were now red-rimmed and bloodshot. Who knows, maybe they were that way before my drinking binge, because I also had bags and dark circles under my eyes from months of sleepless nights. My stomach still felt some of the after-effects of my bout with the bottle. That, I could deal with. The guilt over Karen’s death I couldn’t. It’s all I could think about, and I was driving myself crazy. I desperately needed a diversion.

That’s when I met Jess.

I was somewhere west of Sweetwater, Texas. It had to be the ugliest, flattest piece of road I had ever been on. The only saving grace was that once it got dark, I didn’t have to look at it anymore. I wasn’t tired, so I just kept driving. It was well after midnight on that black, rainy night when I ran across her.

*****

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Jess,” she mumbled, wiping away tears.

“Short for Jessica?”

“No, Mary.” She had come alive, sort of. “Sorry,” she said.

I mustered up a smile of sorts. “That’s okay. I’m Jon.”

I was trying to maintain my non-caring demeanor, but was losing the battle. Maybe it was too many days alone on the road. Maybe there was a part of me that still had a hint of life trying to burrow up through the sorrow. Whatever the reason, Jess intrigued me.

“I’ve gotta ask. How is it you came to be standing by the side of the road in the middle of friggin’ Texas? There are no towns around there, no off-ramps, almost no dirt roads that I’ve seen. Just highway. Were you beamed there by a spaceship?”

She smiled. It was a strange smile, as if I had just stumbled onto her secret.

“I got picked up by a family in a truck stop outside Abilene.” I had to strain to hear her. “They decided they didn’t want me in their car anymore and just dropped me off on the side of the road.”

“Just dropped you off?” I asked incredulously.

“Just dropped me off.”

“Did it have anything to do with the reason you’re headed to Hell?”

“Everything to do with it.”

“And just why are you headed there?”

She shook her head. “It’s a very long story and I’d rather not get dropped off again because of it.”

I had been watching for the last mile or so the flashing lights of a State Trooper coming up quickly behind me. He must’ve been going north of a hundred miles-per-hour. As he got closer, I saw that he was in the fast lane, so I was pretty sure he wasn’t after me. Suddenly, he was close enough for us to hear his siren. As he screamed past, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked over at Jess and saw her scrunched down in the seat, the purpose obvious. She was also shaking, and it wasn’t from the cold.

Maybe I had picked up a whack-job after all.

Chapter 2

She was asleep in minutes. I pulled over to a rest area and searched my trunk for a blanket. I covered her with it and continued on my way. I didn’t have to worry about driving past her destination. It was obvious that, like me, she was drifting. I studied her in the passing headlights. She didn’t look like a drifter. Her shoulder-length hair was in disarray from the rain, but I could tell that it had been professionally cut. Her fingernails had been manicured fairly recently, and her clothes were a good quality. She was running from something. And what could she have possibly told the family that would scare them enough to let her out in the middle of nowhere, without even waiting for a town or a rest area?

Finally, I pulled into a truck stop, turned off the car, and closed my eyes. I wasn’t worried about Jess. My money, gun, and suitcases were locked in the trunk and there was little she could steal in the car. But she didn’t seem the type. Most likely, when I awoke, she would just be gone.

She wasn’t. We woke up almost simultaneously. The car clock said 6:15. I had slept for over three hours. The sun was shining, and for the first time in a long time, my waking thought wasn’t of Karen. Jess seemed better too.

“Thanks again for picking me up,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” I answered. “Can I buy you some breakfast?”

“I’d really appreciate that. I haven’t eaten in a while.

It was a real American truck stop. Tractor trailer trucks filled the expansive parking lot. I had already stopped at a couple on my way west, and there was something about these greasy places that was beginning to appeal to me. I had just hit forty years old and it was like I was letting my hair down for the first time. I was no longer trying to live down my parents’ problems or live up to the expectations that earning a half a million dollars a year brought with it.

We found a booth and both ordered large breakfasts. But knowing my emotional state and sensing hers, I predicted that much of it would remain untouched, despite our hunger. As I sipped my coffee, I studied her in the daylight with her disheveled hair and still damp clothes, and found her attractive. She wore no make-up, which was probably new for her. And while she had the kind of appearance that didn’t really need the addition of makeup, without it, I could see just how worn out she looked, as if something enormous was weighing her down.

“So what was it you said that made the family drop you off?”

She hesitated, but only for a second. “I told them I hear dead people.”

I burst out laughing and almost spat my coffee on her. Of all the things she could have said, that was one I wasn’t ready for.

After I recovered, I said, “Don’t you mean you
see
dead people?”

“That was in the movie,” she answered. She smiled, just for the briefest of moments, as if sensing the absurdity of it all. But there was also a rational look about her. “I don’t see them. I hear them.”

“Gee, and they kicked you out of the car for that?”

“Yeah. Who’d have thought it?” she said. Again, the smile quickly appeared, this time staying a little longer. “Then they threw a Bible out the window and told me to read it. I mean, who has a Bible so close by that they can throw it out the window at you?”

“But you’re serious about all this.”

“I am.”

“Do you do it for a living, like Whoopie Goldberg, in
Ghost
?”

“No. Nothing like that. It started about a year ago. I almost didn’t notice it at first, I just thought I was getting some weird thoughts. But as time’s gone on, it’s become clear that it’s a voice I’m hearing.”

“Do you know what started it?” I asked. I was hooked now. She wasn’t putting me on.

“I do,” she answered. “I’m just not ready to talk about it.”

“Are they ‘good’ voices or ‘bad’ voices?”

“I told them ‘dead people’ for effect, but it’s actually only one voice and I honestly have no idea where it’s coming from. As for good or bad, in the beginning it was just benign. It didn’t seem to have a particular purpose. But just recently it seemed to be leading me down a dangerous path. At the same time, it has actually saved my life more than once. In fact…” She stopped and shook her head. “If you want me to catch another ride, I’d understand. But I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Not at all.” I cocked my head. “Why would you rather I didn’t?”

“Because I think you are the one I’m supposed to go with.”

“Supposed to?”

“It’s a really long story, and I’m not trying to scare you.”